


remember not to get too close (to stars)

by far2late



Series: ilomilo [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: ADHD, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Alexis | Quackity, Mentioned Floris | Fundy, Mentioned Toby Smith | Tubbo, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Ranboo Needs a Hug (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), References to Depression, Restraints, Sad, Sad with a Happy Ending, Stimming, Stims, Stress Relief, Team as Family, Technoblade Has ADHD (Video Blogging RPF), but only threatened and mentioned in one line, no beta i never beta ever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 01:34:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/far2late/pseuds/far2late
Summary: "Quackity had, at the time, made comments about a few of his other habits that he couldn’t help when he was having an off-day and couldn’t do much about it. Ranboo would shake his hands every now and then, enjoying the feeling of the air twisting around them and the jerk of his muscles, something else that he couldn’t explain. He would repeat the same words again and again in End speak, never pausing until he had been shaken a little bit by Tubbo. It was like he got stuck in it and couldn’t stop himself for a bit.It was akin to acting like a child in preschool, in Ranboo’s eyes. Quackity seemed to agree, with how he would tell the teen to shut up and act serious. The comments never really bothered Ranboo, since he agreed with the man; he needed to take into account that important things were going on and not search for attention by acting out like he usually did."orranboo feels the need to stim a bit, techno and phil are understanding
Relationships: Ranboo & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Ranboo & Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: ilomilo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095689
Comments: 105
Kudos: 1881
Collections: Best of DSMP: Neurodivent, Completed stories I've read





	remember not to get too close (to stars)

**Author's Note:**

> tw / implied ableism, mention of restraining someones hands while stimming
> 
> twt is @far2early :]

When Ranboo had woken up that day, it was to the feeling of inherent wrongness seeping into his bones and making him feel as though he was going to fall apart the moment he exited his bed. 

That and the feeling of his body weighing him down and keeping him from getting up where he laid in bed. It was the feeling of dragging his limbs through molasses that grossed him out when he considered getting up, and anticipating just how much energy it would take for him to get up and move and do things that he would otherwise find enjoyable. 

The joy that he got out of harvesting his crops and decorating and building and finding netherite wasn’t enough for him to want to get up and out of bed, despite how he was convinced that on any other day he would be rushing to do it before the sun went down. All he could focus on was how much time he was wasting and how he was physically unable to get up from his bed. 

Ranboo knew that he had to move eventually, however, so he forced himself to get up and get moving, pulling himself up and swinging his legs over the side of his bed. He stared at his feet for a couple of minutes, rubbing at his eyes as the blanket he wore pooled around his waist. His fingers brushed over the fabric and for a moment, it felt so unbelievably uncomfortable that he yanked it away almost immediately. It was the feeling of something rubbing wrong with his skin that made him even more anxious, even though the day had technically just started. 

The sun was still attempting to peak up from over the horizon, framing Phil and Techno’s quietly lit house with a gentle glow that Ranboo was almost jealous of. The area that they had picked out to live in was truly beautiful, especially since their builds didn’t affect the surrounding area either. The wildlife was mostly untouched, considering all Techno would eat was golden carrots, and they weren’t mindlessly tearing at animals for sport either. 

Mobs spawned around there a lot, but they always melted into the snow and made for richer soil in the next few hours, little patches of flowers sprouting from where they used to be before they froze over due to the tundra. 

Ranboo had even heard of something akin to glowing lights in the skies, purple and pink and green twisting together in a beautiful display of Mother Nature and illuminating the night sky rarely, a true treat to whoever got to see them. He wasn’t sure if it was real, let alone if it would happen on their lands, cursed to war and fear. 

He shook his head of those thoughts, turning to get changed into something that didn’t scratch his skin like his usual suit and tie. It was a different day, one for softer clothes and fabrics that weren’t rough against his skin that felt more sensitive than usual. 

These days came along once and a while and Ranboo was never sure what had caused them. He tried to find a pattern between them for a while, the days they happened and the days before and after them, but there was never a certain thing that stuck out for him. Niki and the L’manberg citizens never took much note of it, save for when he had to wear his suit all the time and had been more than uncomfortable because of it, going home early and in tears most of the time.

Quackity had, at the time, made comments about a few of his other habits that he couldn’t help when he was having an off-day and couldn’t do much about it. Ranboo would shake his hands every now and then, enjoying the feeling of the air twisting around them and the jerk of his muscles, something else that he couldn’t explain. He would repeat the same words again and again in End speak, never pausing until he had been shaken a little bit by Tubbo. It was like he got stuck in it and couldn’t stop himself for a bit. 

It was akin to acting like a child in preschool, in Ranboo’s eyes. Quackity seemed to agree, with how he would tell the teen to shut up and act serious. The comments never really bothered Ranboo, since he agreed with the man; he needed to take into account that important things were going on and not search for attention by acting out like he usually did. 

Ranboo had been more than embarrassed every time he had been scolded, but he couldn’t help it, either. His hands jerked every time he felt stressed or happy or just needed something to do with them and it was just reflex built into them. The man had begun to threaten to just tape his hands down every now and then, and even though Ranboo knew Quackity would never do it, the threat itself had him feeling terrified at the time. 

So, consequentially, he forced himself to calm down and curl his hands into fists whenever he needed to, bite on his tongue until it bled so he wouldn’t end up bursting out with a word that had been cycling in his head that made him happy when he said it. It was close to babbling, to describe it properly, but Ranboo had to force himself to stop for the sake of L’manberg’s cabinet and their official job. 

There had been one time, Ranboo had recalled, where he had been speaking to Tubbo on the way back from a meeting and Tubbo had said something about balloons and decorating for the festival they were planning before everything had gone wrong. The way Tubbo had said the word balloon with his accent made Ranboo repeat it, enjoying the way that the first syllable slipped off of his tongue. 

He had repeated it until he was left babbling with the word, ‘Ba.’ repeating again and again and again, Tubbo doing little to stop him. Ranboo hadn’t even remembered that it was something Quackity didn’t like and scolded about him and Tubbo’s eyes were strangely fond as he let the taller hybrid next to him repeat the syllable until he stopped, hands curling into fists and shaking in front of him. 

Ranboo had gone home, happy with himself as he sat down and read through his memory book once more, freezing on the little section that noted that Quackity didn’t like it when he acted out during meetings. He didn’t bring it up to Tubbo the next day, but he appreciated that little afternoon with Tubbo nonetheless. 

The teen had pulled on a soft sweater he had saved from Doomsday, pulling it on and over his head as he appreciated the fact that he had saved it from the explosions. It was black, completely, without any patterns at all, but it was soft on the inside and fell over his bony shoulders in a way that made him feel smaller than usual, unlike how he had always felt like he had been towering over everyone else. Ranboo stretched, limbs shaking slightly before he tugged on his boots and tied them. 

Phil had given him a pair of hand-me-downs when he had moved into the tundra, figuring that the teen wouldn’t be used to the snowy landscapes that he had moved into. Ranboo already ran a bit cold in general, but he decided that boots to keep his feet from getting wet because of the snow would be better than nothing. 

Ranboo made his way outside, shoulders free of the netherite armour that would usually weigh him down. He was pretty sure this was the first time he was having one of those days nearby Techno and Phil, so he made an attempt not to get too close to them in fear of managing to piss one of them off in the process. 

The teen had forgotten to account for the fact that Techno was still incredibly suspicious of him and he had seen the man creeping around him for the past couple of days. It was more prevalent since Phil and he had gone off for their own a couple of days ago, and when he had started to slowly black out again. It was slightly confusing, but he couldn’t blame them for it when he had been pretty suspicious for a while. 

Ranboo made his way through his day the best he normally could, save for the small things that kept going wrong and made him want to cry. He had accidentally trampled on his newly farmed crops, ruining a perfectly good harvest. Afterwards, he had found out he lost his beacon and then scared his pets when he had entered his basement with enough frustration to scare the gentle creatures who were more used to his peaceful nature than the anger he was showing. 

By the end of his terrible day, he was ready to collapse into bed and never get up, but he had been interrupted after he got a message from Phil on his comm, buzzing just as he leaned down to take off his sopping wet boots that made his skin crawl with the uncomfortable feeling they gave when they rubbed against his feet. His hands had been shaking almost all day, curled into fists as they jerked and hit the side of his thigh. He had the urge to rub the skin of his left hand raw with his thumb but held off on it as the comm distracted him. 

_ < Philza whispered to you > _ Do you want to come over to help organize a bit? Techno and I could use the company :)

The offer was new, and Ranboo could already tell it was a rare one. Maybe it was some sort of test on whether or not he’d be willing to spend time with them to examine him up close or see if he was suspicious or if he would go off on his own and be more suspicious in the process. And if it wasn’t any of those things and it was a genuine offer for the company, then he would feel terrible for denying the man who had done so much for him in the past few weeks he had been at Techno’s. 

_ < You whispered to Philza > _ yeah, just give me a bit :] 

Ranboo sighed aloud, hand jerking and hitting the side of his thigh once more as he grit his teeth and curled his hand into fists, forcing himself to hold back the movements in an attempt to prepare for the quick trip over. He bit down on his knuckles, eyes squeezed shut as he shook his head, repeating the motion when he realized it gave him the same buzz the others did before hitting himself in the side of the head out of frustration. 

The teen almost resigned himself to another half-hour of hitting himself before realizing that he couldn’t leave Phil waiting on him for that long and getting up, pacing in his home and taking deep breaths to calm down. 

“I can do this, I can do this, I can just… not be weird for half-an-hour, or whatever. However long. I can be normal, I can do it, I just need to… Yeah, I’ll be fine, I won’t freak Phil and Techno out,” Ranboo reassured himself, right hand twisting into his hair and running his fingers through the soft strands repeatedly, the soft bits of his hair sliding between his forefinger and middle finger in a way that nearly made him entranced before forcing his hands to his side. 

By the time he had worked up the nerve to go out, it was at least ten minutes after Phil had originally messaged him and the sun was setting on the tundra as well. Ranboo could spy a couple of mobs in the field that bridged the gap between their homes, but he still didn’t feel like he could handle wearing netherite armour without crying. As a result, he resolved to throw an Ender pearl and land somewhere near their doghouse, the world shifting under his feet as he did so. 

Ranboo hoped that Phil hadn’t seen that and that the duo was sitting in the basement where the majority of the things were. The teen felt the urge to rub at the skin that was slowly going raw on his left hand before shoving them into the pockets of the hoodie he wore and making his way to the backdoor that led directly to all the chests that Phil had invited him to organize. 

When he walked in, it was clear to see why Phil had requested Ranboo’s help. The teen blinked, peering into the room as Phil and Techno looked up from the floor. 

Some of the chests closest to the door were singed black at the ends, the others broken and the ones closest to the back completely untouched. The stuff that was previously in said chests were in piles around the room, a rather large one of valuables in the middle of Phil and Techno. He could faintly smell gunpowder and he came to a pretty simple conclusion with the clues he was presented with at the current moment. 

“Creeper?” He asked, a bemused smile playing on his lips. Phil nodded sheepishly, beckoning him to come in as Techno snorted quietly at the word. 

“Couldn’t do much about this one,” Phil explained simply, Ranboo closing the door behind him before taking a seat on the floor cross-legged, taking his hands out of his pockets and lacing his fingers together, bringing them in tighter and looser in a repeated pattern before he realized what he was doing and let his palms lay flat on his thighs. 

“What can I help with, then?” Ranboo asked, looking up at the two adults, one of which was giving him an odd look through the corner of his eyes. He might have been seeing things, though, as Techno didn’t reply to his question. 

“Well, you could sort through the books and figure out what enchantments they are? And sort them by pile so I can put them in a bookshelf upstairs instead of down here. Creepers can’t climb ladders.” Ranboo chuckled a bit at the last line, nodding as he shuffled to move to the pile of books, by the ladder that had led up to the main part of the home.

“Got it, I’ll just… yeah, I’ll do that, okay.” Phil hummed a response, returning to his careful sorting of potions and emeralds as Techno cleaned gunpowder off of the gold ingots and blocks he had gathered close by him. 

Ranboo picked up the first book, flipping it open and reading the words on the inside of the cover to get the details about the enchantment and realizing it was a Silk Touch book. He put it aside, starting a small pile as he read through it, ignoring how much he wanted to pick at the front cover with his right hand, forcing them to still. 

The teen had started to tune out of the quiet conversation that Techno and Phil had started, getting more relaxed in the domestic setting as he sorted through the leather-bound books. He was particularly fond of the blue ones with velvety covers and bookmarks that would be attached to the spine, hands rubbing over the cover as he flipped it open to see that it was another weapons enhancement rather than tools one. 

He had picked up on a pattern, noticing that the blue covers more often than not had enchantments that would be useful for combat; Sweeping Edge, Sharpness, Fire Aspect, and more of the sort. It made it easier to sort through the books, and eventually, he had been sitting in a ring of books that had been carefully organized by nimble hands throughout half-an-hour. 

More than once, Ranboo had to force himself to keep his hands still and his mouth shut as he sat by and let his mind wander while sorting books. Phil had, at one point, said something that had almost set him off into another string of babbling which he was sure would make him look stupid by the time he reached the end of it. He wasn’t even talking about anything that important, Ranboo just liked the way his ‘A’s’ sounded when he said the word spawner and the feeling of his lips popping when he said the first syllable had him wanting to repeat ‘Pa’ again and again and again until his lips went numb. 

He had managed to contain himself, somehow, by pulling his hoodie over his lips and mouthing the words until he got sick of the cotton that would stick to the wetter parts of his lips and he stopped, trying not to spit out fur and fuzzy stuff from the inside of the warm apparel onto the floor. Ranboo was getting more and more frustrated, though, tired as he wanted to go home and sit Enderpearl and Enderchest by him and let himself snap his fingers and wave them and repeat their meows back to them until he fell asleep. 

He hadn’t noticed that Techno had been keeping a closer eye on him as the night went on, even as the moon stretched up into the sky and it was past midnight. At least an hour had passed at this point, and Ranboo was almost shaking where he sat, hands trembling ever so slightly as he picked up the last bit of books, Techno done with his own gold ingots and blocks with his tissue. 

Phil got up suddenly after the room had gone silent, Ranboo hunched over his books and startling as he moved, eyes following the man. 

“I’m gonna go make some hot chocolate, it’s getting pretty cold,” The man explained, stepping around Ranboo to go up the ladder that was behind him. The teen nodded, hands twisting together and fingers tapping against his right hand’s knuckles before pausing and forcing himself back to the task at hand. 

As he did so, he heard a small sigh from Techno, who cleared his throat before speaking up. 

“... You know, um. You don’t have to hide that.” Ranboo looked at him, eyes confused and head tilted to the side as he looked at the man. At the look, he gestured to Ranboo’s hands, raising an eyebrow. 

“The thing you do with your hands. Or whatever you want to say. Phil and I don’t mind.” Ranboo’s mind shut off for a second, mouth falling open automatically as he spoke. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ranboo said automatically, hands wringing together as his thumb moved to scratch over the skin on his palm that peeked out from the grip. 

“Right,” Techno deadpanned, looking at the action made by the teen, his own gaze following before pulling his hands apart. 

“Sorry, I didn’t-” Ranboo paused, remembering that this wasn’t Quackity he was talking to before altering his words. “I didn’t want to bother you. With the whole… yeah. It can be distracting, I think. At L’manberg it was, at least. In like. Those cabinet meetings and stuff, where everything was all serious and stressful and everyone was yelling a lot because of how everything was going bad, and- Not that you’re like the cabinet, I just didn’t want to- Um. I’ll stop talking now.” 

Techno snorted a bit after the ramble that Ranboo had come up with in a matter of seconds, sitting up a bit more as he turned to face the teen properly. 

“Is it just the thing with your hands that they would get annoyed about?” The man asked, the teen swallowing as he rubbed a hand up his covered forearm, scratching the cloth against his bare skin. 

“Um, I dunno. It wasn’t like- They wouldn’t get annoyed, just- I think Quackity didn’t like it, was it, I, um. It was distracting but, like, it was fine they scolded me about it. And when I would just end up repeating stuff for a while, that got annoying, I can admit that.” Techno tipped his head to the side slightly, making Ranboo shift back just slightly automatically. 

“Phil and I don’t mind at all, don’t worry. It gets loud around here sometimes,” Techno shrugged, picking up a gold nugget in his hand and beginning to chip the netherrack off of it. It seemed like that should have been the end of the conversation, but Ranboo interrupted again, voice working against his will. 

“I don’t want to impose…” He said, trailing off at the look he got. 

“Phil invited you. If I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t even know a creeper got in here in the first place. Just loosen up a bit.” Ranboo nodded hesitantly, hands returning to sit in his lap as he let his thumb rub over his left hand again and again and again, not being told off as he did so. 

It led him to a bit of a test of sorts, seeing what he could do that would annoy the man as Phil was still upstairs. Techno was still sitting in his corner, finished with his full bits of gold and working on the smaller, broken-up parts. Ranboo, in the meantime, was shaking his head repeatedly in little movements, blinking hard as he rubbed the thumb of his right hand into its palm. 

The actions were stress-relieving to him, the teen feeling better as he repeated them again and again and again. Eventually, he stopped shaking his head, continuously blinking as his left arm waved rapidly where it was left in front of him, the right one joining in and making him feel somewhat stupid in Techno’s presence. 

The man didn’t comment on it, however. Nor did he comment on how Ranboo began to repeat the word ‘spawner’ in the same accent Phil did, eventually working it down to just the syllable ‘Pa,’ as the man in question made his way downstairs with two cups of hot chocolate. 

One mug was set in front of him, Phil unflinching as Ranboo paused for a moment, a similar cup set in front of Techno. He looked up at the piglin hybrid for a moment, who made eye contact and nodded, eyes just a bit softer as Ranboo went off into his destressing tangent once more. 

It turned out to be a relaxing night for him. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is entirely self indulgent and i wanted to vent so im sorry if this doesnt relate to u personally but it is how i feel sometimes :) im glad u read this and i hope u enjoyed! tell me what u thought and feel free to suggest anything ranboo centric i can add to this series before i can make a new one with a different song lol


End file.
